


F is for Family.

by AuthorInDistress



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Drabble, Hurt/Comfort, In a way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 12:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorInDistress/pseuds/AuthorInDistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't choose your Family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	F is for Family.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose_de_Noire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_de_Noire/gifts).



> To my darling Rose-de-noire! Happy Belated birthday!! I wanted to gift this on the day but time ran away from me when assignments started filing in D: It's shorter than I'd planned but hopefully you like it all the same! <33

 .

* * *

.

A pure white cloth, old and dotted with sewn lettering that spelled out his initials, swiped through the condensation that had formed over a mirror in the bathroom.

Draco held his towel around his waist, lowering his wand when he was satisfied with the image that he had created in the mist. The mirror now had a face drawn into it - it had a horribly huge nose, some overlarge glasses and smudged ugly scar over its forehead. Staring at it instead of his own reflection behind it, he felt that familiar anger welling up inside him but it gradually dulled itself down. The cloth still swiped away though, listening to his thoughts – whatever they might be _now_ – and they erased the glasses, the scar and even the nose. The cheeks became sunken and the head became bald, and it only took the drawing of a vicious smile to make him jerk and wipe it all out.

He sighed, goosebumps forming over his skin but he didn’t bother with a warming spell and only gathered his clothes into his arms and left the bathroom entirely. His room was much warmer, and he felt better when he noticed that his mother had left some food on the bed for him as well. He hadn’t been allowed downstairs for dinner whilst the others had gathered for a meeting so he’d spent the majority of his sudden free-time staring into space in a hot bath. He was really starting to think that he was only allowed downstairs when You-know-Who was either purposefully taunting his family or torturing and killing someone who’d crossed him - or had just had the unfortunate luck to be born as something he despised. It wasn’t a nice thought but it was the only one that made sense to him with how things were nowadays and he preferred it immensely to what it _could_ be.

It was better to be ignored and taunted than rotting in the dungeons or dead after all. And he would rather hide in the shadows, however cowardly, if it meant that he wouldn’t be given something to do.

He dressed slowly and then glanced at the grandfather clock out the corner of his eye just to check that he hadn’t gone over his own individual time-limit. He'd just lifted the fork that was balanced on the side of the plate to cut into his omelette when he heard a piercing sound that could only be one of their glass ornaments shattering. He almost ignored it, thinking that it must either be one of the DeathEaters or perhaps even his father losing his grip on something as he so often did these days, but when he heard a soft wail from next door his back straightened and he dropped the fork back onto the plate.

The meeting must be over if his mother was already upstairs but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes she feigned illness and didn’t even go at all, though it was risky doing that more than twice and he really wished that she’d at least _try_ to do as he did; to zone it all out and stare at that one scratch that their dining table had. But then again, she was much older than him and had a lot more to worry about, not to mention how used to this she must be by now as well – this living in fear.

He’d always imagined their life under You-know-Who to be glamorous, for respect to mount on their family and for their _Dark Lord_ to not be such a maniac and instead be someone with ideals and traditions who only wanted to restore those back to their world. That was what he'd been told all his life, that You-know-Who would restore the wizarding world to the glory that it must have been years and years ago, but this – this hiding and cold and darkness, was nothing like he’d imagined and nothing that he wanted.

With a sigh, he gently knocked on the spare-room next door, not waiting for an answer when all he heard was another soft whisper behind the wood. He pushed his way inside, lacking the strength to hold the door open for long and letting it click shut behind him once his hands slipped off of it. He blinked at what he saw in surprise, expecting himself to kneel beside his mother and use her wand to repair whatever she had broken but instead, he saw his aunt sitting on the edge of the bed.

The mirror over the dresser was utterly cracked and a tiny, clay-doll lay in pieces on the floor. Her hair wasn’t brushed as usual and it hung over her face, concealing it and reminding Draco of their new allies; the Dementors. She didn’t move nor acknowledge him in any way and, feeling uncomfortable at looking at her like this, he backed into the door, turning to leave again now that he knew it wasn’t his mother and that he wasn’t needed here at all.

He knew how Aunt Bella felt about You-know-Who, how much she respected him, and he felt cold sometimes whenever he was reminded that it was his failure to _kill_ that had been what had lost her her Lord's respect in the end. She still strove to earn it back, of course, and often did in some ways but all of them here knew that she would never be as highly regarded as she had been before. Most of them even loved to remind her of that whenever their family was mocked, and that was probably why she was here like this now. The reminder of her sister Andromeda's family must have dug in a lot more than she’d shown.

Viciously, Draco was glad that it did. Glad that she was hurting now, over something so mediocre compared to what she’d done to others, but then he remembered when she’d first come back to the house, when she’d praised him for the job that he’d been given when almost everyone else had doubted his success. Back then, he’d lorded over it all, had loved her attention, and even though the memory now leaves a stale taste in his mouth, he still felt as though she’d meant well then. Perhaps. He’d never really know how she felt about him or how she thought, but she was family and that was something complicated when it came to _theirs_.

He pulled the handle of the door to leave, ducking out in bare-feet before freezing when he heard her speak, “Draco ... ” He didn’t move, not for a while. “ ... come here.”

He swallowed, glancing at her over his shoulder. She hadn’t moved much, besides extending a hand toward him, and after another minute or so he reached over and took it. Her nails were mismatched, some bizarrely long and others so chapped that it looked painful; he stared at them instead of her face when she finally looked up. She drew him closer until his knees hit the bed and he had to turn to sit over it, still looking down at her hand. She was strong, stronger than him anyway, and that scared him, because her magic was what made her so dangerous, her mind that made her unpredictable, but to have strength as well meant that she could possibly be almost unstoppable in a fight. It was no wonder she’d killed and hurt so many without being stopped.

She kept a hold of his hand as he sat beside her, so close that he felt stiff and terrified there, but also oddly at ease. He recognised the gentle beat that her fingers started tapping over his knuckles, knew it from somewhere in his subconscious, and he wasn’t sure if it was the memory that it stirred or some form of hypnotism that lead him to resting his head on her shoulder as they sat there. Her hair was rough, strands stuck together and clumped in knots that would take potions to rectify, and she smelt like burnt cloth. His head lolled and he shut his eyes, focusing on the beat that she drummed over his skin and forgetting everything else for just a moment. Forgetting that below them lay the body of the Hogwart's Muggle teacher, and the snake that was slowly eating her where they usually ate themselves.

He relaxed, his head still on her shoulder, feeling a familiar kind of warmth run through him.

But then; “He will call on you again.” He turned cold when she whispered into the silence, her voice raspy and high all at once, “He will." Her fingers jolted, the beat lost, "And when you obey he’ll remember. He'll remember.” She left the rest unsaid but he knew. _He’ll remember me, remember what I can do.  
_

He felt pressure behind his eyes but he willed it away just in case she noticed and only nodded against her shoulder instead.

“He’ll call on you.”

Yes, Draco supposed with a heart-slicing kind of dread, he will.

.


End file.
